by Jan Hudson
When the final credits rolled, Kale turned to her, smiled, and gave her a quick kiss. “Too bad they don’t have balconies anymore,” he said against her ear, stopping to circle the inner shell with the tip of his tongue. “We could have gone upstairs and smooched.”
She giggled. “With the way you tend to get carried away, the manager probably would have thrown us out.”
“Who gets carried away? You’re the one who makes all those funny little noises.”
“Kale!”
He chuckled. “They’re delightful, sexy little noises. Why don’t we go home and experiment some more?” He splayed his hand across her thigh and his fingers slipped slowly upward. “I’d like to . . .”
The things he whispered in her ear sent a flush of heat racing over her. She almost slid off the seat. When the house lights came on, she was mortified. She grabbed his hand and pushed it away. “Kale! We’re in a public place.”
“And quite alone.”
Sunny looked around, thankful that the theater had emptied. Self-conscious in any case, she stood and brushed at the popcorn remnants clinging to her white cotton slacks. “Have you forgotten that we have an appointment in less than an hour?”
“Ah, yes. The Scorpions. Let’s go by the station and pick up some video equipment. In case our young punks agree to be filmed, we’ll save the time needed for an extra meeting.”
* * *
They drove to the port section north of the city where tankers and cargo ships frequently entered the harbor, bound for the refineries or docks along the water. Huge oil storage tanks, grain elevators, and warehouses covered the blocks surrounding the channel. Ordinarily the port was busy with activity, but it being Sunday afternoon a few minutes after five o’clock, the area was virtually deserted.
They turned off Harbor Street and bumped over potholes and railroad tracks until they came to the warehouse region, where she was to meet members of the Scorpions. Noting the state of the ramshackle buildings and the absence of another living soul, Sunny was glad Kale has insisted on coming along to meet with B. J. Johnson and his buddy.
Kale parked the car near the designated place and they got out. “Why did you decide on this area?” he asked.
“Because B.J. wouldn’t agree to come to the bar at the Marriott, as you would have preferred,” she said sarcastically.
“I don’t like it. I don’t like it a damned bit. You wait in the car with the doors locked. I’ll talk to the punks.”
“Honestly, Kale.” She rolled her eyes. “You can be such a pain. I can handle myself. After all, it’s daylight and we’ll be out in the open in a public place. What can happen?”
“Plenty.” He scowled and retrieved a bush jacket from the trunk and pulled it on.
“Isn’t it warm for a jacket?” Sunny asked.
He shrugged. “I’m used to wearing it on assignments. The pockets are handy for my gear.”
He took something from the trunk and quickly slipped it into one of his deep side pockets. Sun-ny’s eyes grew wide. “Was that a . . . gun?”
“Yes.”
“But, Kale, these are just boys. Posturing adolescents.”
“How well do you know these ‘boys’?”
“I don’t know them all, but B.J. seemed nice enough on the phone. He’s the nephew of the next-door neighbor of one of the engineers at the station.”
“Sunny, my love, you are incredibly naive. I’m taking the gun. I don’t plan to use it, but I’ve learned the hard way to be prepared.” He slammed the trunk. “I’ll leave the video equipment here and come back for it if we need it.”
As they walked the short distance to the rendezvous point, Sunny said, “Something feels funny.” She sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”
Kale sniffed. “Only the usual port smells. Why?”
She shrugged and laughed. “Nothing. Maybe it’s just the anticipation of the interview that’s making my nose twitch.”
He smiled indulgently, hugged her to his side, and tweaked her nose. “Is that like your ear clues you to the weather?”
“Sort of. But it’s not just my ears that signal the weather to me. Sometimes it’s my toes or my spine. And I get the weirdest feeling right here,” she said, splaying her hand across her abdomen, “when a hurricane—”
He stopped and frowned down at her. “Wait a minute. Are you serious about your nose?”
“Sure. It’s my nose for news. I thought all good reporters had it. Don’t you?” She tried to keep a straight face, but the conspicuous play of emotions on his, from mild consternation to total disbelief, made her giggle.
His face relaxed into a smile. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Nope.” She briskly rubbed under her nose with the back of her index finger. It was itching like crazy. “Are you sure you don’t smell something?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “A rat, maybe.”
“Oh, look, these must be our guys.”
Two teens, big burly fellows with necks thicker than railroad ties, ambled toward them. They wore what seemed to be the uniform: low-riding jeans and red tank tops with a scorpion stenciled across the chest. One wore earphones and snapped his fingers to a beat only he could hear. They both walked with a swagger, their heads, topped by odd-looking haircuts, waggling like the bobble-headed dogs given as carnival prizes.
The one without the earphones looked Sunny up and down. “You be the one on TV. You’re ba-aad.”
She felt affronted. “Bad?”
“Yeah, ba-aad. That’s good.”
“Oh, that kind of bad. Thanks. Are you B.J.?”
“That’s me.” He looked Kale over. “Who’s this dude?”
She bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. “He’s my assistant.”
“This is Jeffery. We call him Meathook.” B.J. turned to his cohort, who was still snapping his fingers, and whopped a forearm across Jeffery’s chest. “Say hello to the lady, Meathook.”
He inclined his head briefly. “Do.”
“Meathook don’t talk much.” B.J. said. “And you’ll have to pardon him. He ain’t much on manners either.”
While Kale eyed the pair with his stone-faced intensity, Sunny briefly explained the story she was doing and asked if they would consider doing an interview on camera. “We’ll blot out your faces and disguise your voices before it goes on the air.”
B.J. took Meathook aside to confer.
Sunny sniffed air again. “Kale, I’m positive that I smell something burning. Over there.”
At the precise moment she pointed to a warehouse half a block away, the front windows blew out. Smoke and flames shot out the opening.
Without a word, both Sunny and Kale broke for the car, their reporter’s instincts taking over. As soon as the trunk was open, Sunny grabbed her phone and punched the emergency number. Kale hoisted the camera and was running back to the scene as she was still reporting the fire.
She snatched up a mike and waist battery and sprinted after him. When she reached B.J. and Meathook, she thrust the phone at B.J. “Dial the station for me. Five, five, five, thirteen hundred.” She shoved the mike and cord at Meathook. “Hold this. Come on, guys.”
She took off at a trot, strapping the battery belt as she went. Great black clouds of smoke poured from the warehouse. She could hear the whoosh and roar of flames, feel the searing heat as she neared.
“This is B. J. Johnson here. Hold the phone for the weather lady.” B.J. handed her the phone.
“Tina? Sunny. Kale and I are on the scene at a fire in the port area. It’s a bad one. Send a mobile unit and crew immediately. Plan on a live report for six.” She gave Tina directions, then stuck the phone in her pocket and grabbed the mike from Meathook.
“You guys direct traffic,” Sunny shouted over her shoulder. “Try to keep people back out of the way.”
Kale was filming as she reached him. “It’s spreading fast,” he yelled. A series of explosions inside the building blew out other windows and sent lo
ng fingers of crackling fire into the air, spawning flashing sparks and acrid, lung-searing black smoke. “God knows what’s stored along here. You’d better get back.”
“Like hell I will!”
“Sunny, dammit! This place is dangerous. Get out of here!”
“Forget it, Hoaglin. Put that camera on me and keep it steady.”
She plugged in her mike and stepped in front of the camera. With wailing sirens in the background and a roaring conflagration belching flames and smoke behind her, she said, “This is Sunny Larkin, KRIP, reporting from the scene of a fire that started just moments ago in this warehouse in the port area. As you can see, there are oil storage tanks only a short distance from the blaze and firemen are on their way at this moment.”
They moved aside as trucks and firemen began pouring into the area. Assisted by the mobile crew that arrived a short time later, they continued to film, feeding live coverage to the evening news and following the story until the potentially disastrous fire was finally doused several hours later.
The caustic smell of charred, smoldering rubble and the pungent odor of wet ashes hung heavy in the air as Sunny and Kale trudged back to the car. Both were sweaty and streaked with soot.
“Tired?” Kale asked.
“I’m pooped.”
“You did a good job. Thank God we were able to report the fire in time. If the flames had spread unchecked and reached the the oil storage tanks, we could have had a real disaster on our hands.”
When they reached the car, B.J. and Meathook were leaning on the fender of the Cadillac.
“Man, that was something, wasn’t it?” B.J. asked. “Are we gonna be on TV?”
Sunny laughed. “I think Kale got a shot of you directing the fire trucks.”
“Cool.” Abroad grin split his face. “Man, did you see all them trucks? They were flash. And all them dudes running around with hoses and stuff. They were ba-aad. Me and Meathook decided we might like to be firemen.” He elbowed his friend. “Idn’t that right, Meathook?”
Meathook only smirked.
After Kale stowed the equipment in the trunk, B.J. said, “You still want to interview us?”
“Sure,” Sunny said, “but could we make it another time? I’m done in.”
“No sweat. Say, I like this TV business. You think maybe me and Meathook could go over to the station sometime and look around?”
“How about one afternoon next week? I’ll show you the place, and we can do the interview in a studio.”
They set a date, then waved good-bye to the boys and headed home. Sunny was ready to be rid of the grime and stench of the fire, but suddenly she discovered she was famished.
“I need a bath in the worst way,” she told Kale, “but I’d sell my soul for a cheeseburger.”
He smiled at her. “I think I can locate one for a cheaper price than that. I could manage a couple of big ones and a beer myself. It’s almost midnight, and we missed dinner. Popcorn will hold you for only so long.”
They found a little hamburger joint still open, and while their meat was grilling, they washed their hands well enough to allow them to handle their food.
When they sat down at the scarred Formica table, Sunny leaned over and said, “Why didn’t you tell me I look so awful? I almost frightened myself when I saw my face in the mirror. I look like I’ve been stoking coal.”
“You don’t look awful. You look like a hardworking reporter who’s just finished doing a hell of a job.”
She brightened. “We did do a good job, didn’t we? We make a good team.”
“A damned good team.” He caught her hand across the table. “In more ways than journalistically.”
Before she could comment, their food was delivered by a bleary-eyed man wearing a stained apron and whose appearance was only marginally better than those of the derelicts who hung around City Hall. Judging by his state, she wondered about the quality of the food, but when she took the first bite of her juicy cheeseburger, she sighed. “This is ecstasy.”
“That’s the same thing you said about me in the wee hours of the morning. Is a cheeseburger beating my time?”
She laughed and tossed a french fry at him.
He picked it up and popped it in his mouth.
As they ate, Kale seemed unusually quiet. Perhaps he was simply hungry, but from his distracted expression, she thought it was more than that.
“Is something bothering you?” she asked. “I can almost see wheels turning in your head.”
“I’ve been thinking about the fire. Don’t you think it’s odd that it started when it did?”
She shrugged. “I suppose all fires have to start sometime. It’s lucky we were there.”
“Lucky? I don’t know. It’s too much of a coincidence for me to swallow. Coincidences make me suspicious.”
“What are you insinuating?”
“I doubt if it can be proven, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that those two young thugs set the blaze just to show off and get a rise out of us.”
Shocked by his suggestion, she said, “You think they’re arsonists? Oh, Kale, you’re such a cynic. Those boys seemed normal to me—a little full of themselves and feeling their male hormones, but basically okay kids. They might make a little mischief, but I can’t imagine them doing something so destructive on a lark.”
“A little mischief? Oh, love, you’re a real Pollyanna. Don’t be suckered in. Those kids are hoodlums. Haven’t you been paying attention to your own research? Don’t you realize what kinds of things gangs are involved in?”
“But they were very polite to me. I’m sure all that stuff is exaggerated. They’re just misguided kids. Didn’t you ever do something foolish when you were young—like steal a watermelon from a farmer’s patch or wrap somebody’s house in toilet paper? Don’t be such a misanthrope.”
* * *
Kale smiled down at Sunny, who was curled against him sound asleep, the epitome of innocence. Stealing watermelons and wrapping houses with toilet paper. Remembering her words, he shook his head. He’d bet his last dollar that the Scorpions and the Tarantulas were into dope and theft and a dozen other destructive pursuits. With those rose-colored glasses she wore, she didn’t have a clue about the real world—which was just as well. He hated to think of life’s garbage soiling her, spoiling her sweet compassion and bright optimism.
Maybe he was a misanthrope, but he’d learned to distrust human nature through bitter experience. He’d mucked around in the cesspools of the world, encountered things that would shock her sensitive spirit. He would move heaven and earth to keep the innocent sparkle in her eyes, to keep her from having to confront the horror of atrocities and disillusionment that stalked the unsuspecting.
He kissed her nose. “We’re home.”
Her big blue eyes blinked. “I must have dozed off.” She yawned.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you inside. You’re exhausted. Want me to carry you?”
She shook her head. “I can walk.”
But she was decidedly slow on her feet as he led her upstairs and to the connecting bath between their rooms. It pained him to see her so fatigued. She was such a delicate, precious creature that she deserved to be pampered and coddled and cuddled. Something about her made him want to slay dragons and carry her on a silk pillow, a distinctly new attitude for him.
He started the shower and adjusted the temperature. When he turned back to Sunny, she was leaning against the sink with her hands gathering the bottom of her sweater, a dazed look on her face, as if she’d forgotten what she was doing.
Kale chuckled and began undressing her. When he peeled her slacks and panties to her ankles, he said, “You’re going to have to help me some here, love. Step out. There. That’s it.”
He quickly shed his own soiled clothes and led her into the shower, where he washed her all over and shampooed her hair.
“Mmmm,” she murmured as he massaged her scalp. “That feels wonderful. I’d like to do the same for you, but
I don’t think I can lift my arms. I can’t imagine what’s wrong with me, but I’ve run out of steam. I think the beer did it.”
“I’m not surprised. You didn’t get much sleep last night, and you’ve had a busy couple of days.”
“Not any different from yours.”
“I’m used to it, and I don’t require much sleep.”
As quickly as he could, he washed his own body and hair, then dried Sunny and himself. She stood like a sleepy child as he rubbed the towel briskly over her.
He lifted her into his arms, and when she encircled his neck and snuggled against his shoulder, his heart swelled with such strong emotion that he thought it would burst.
He slipped her between the covers of his bed and crawled in beside her, drawing her close.
“Kale?”
“Hmmm?”
“I don’t have on my nightgown.”
“Don’t worry about it, love. I’ll keep you warm.” He kissed her forehead and delicately veined eyelids.
“Kale?”
“Hmmm?”
“I don’t think I can . . . you know.”
He chuckled. “There’s always tomorrow.”
“Yes.” She sighed and wiggled closer, laying her head on his shoulder and her small hand on his chest. “I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”
His heart almost soared through the ceiling with love for her. He whispered the words, but she was already asleep.
It was just as well. He’d already become more involved with her than he should have. If he had any sense, he’d pack his duffel and head back overseas before things got any more out of hand. He wasn’t the right person for someone like Sunny, and he didn’t want to see her hurt. Foreign correspondents had lousy track records in relationships. Most of the guys he knew who’d been in the field for any length of time had been divorced two or three times. Wives and lovers soon tired of men who were always off on the next story, of partners who constantly flirted with danger and became jaded by their experiences.
A white picket fence and gingerbread in the oven weren’t in the cards for Sunny and him. Coming to Corpus Christi and meeting Sunny was like stumbling onto Brigadoon, an enchanted time and place that came alive for a short time, then disappeared. He’d chosen his path a long time ago. In a few weeks he’d be gone.
